Get those creative juices flowing – and focus on the positive! The second Ideas City Festival, which explores the future of the city and ways of enabling change, is taking place in downtown New York City in May. This years theme is called “Untapped Capital”, looking at ways to identify and marshal surplus resources rather than that ubiquitous focus at present on scarcity and a make-do-and-mend-mentality.
As part of this festival, Storefront for Architecture and Art has launched its Streetfest Competition – looking for ideas for ‘temporary outdoor structures’ – to create sheltered spaces on the street which can be used for anything from vendors, to workshops to performances. The competition is run jointly with the New Museum and Architizer.
Proposals need to exhibit all necessary firmitas, utilitas and venustas, as well as a “playful engagement with the city or its citizens” and being able to be both put up and taken down within 2 hours flat. And with a $7,500 first prize and a budget of $20,000 for construction costs there's more than enough cash to rustle something up.
But hurry: the deadline for registering for the competition is already 18 January (including the payment of the $50 registration fee), with the actual competition deadline on 9 February.